Pease talks Murphy, Mornhinweg, Taylor & Clowney

Brent Pease faced a difficult task last week as the Gators traveled to South Carolina. Facing Jadeveon Clowney and South Caronia’s daunting defense is no easy task for a healthy team. Add on the fact that Pease had to scheme against the Gamecock defense with a third string quarterback who had never taken a collegiate snap, let alone started a conference game on the road and things start to get dicey.

Even with an offense destined to end up on the wrong side of the top-100 nationally for a third straight season, Pease did a good job of masking Florida’s deficiencies last week, while providing a conservative game plan with some wrinkles to keep South Carolina guessing. It didn’t turn out well for Florida but they should get a reprieve from the gauntlet of SEC defenses this week with FCS opponent Georgia Southern coming into town.

Confidence in Skyler Mornhinweg

Nothing against Skyler Mornhinweg but anytime a team is using a third string quarterback it’s a less than ideal situation. Still, Pease has confidence in all the healthy quarterbacks that remain on the team.

I believe that no matter who steps under center will manage the plan as it is.”

Pease was encouraged with the progress that Mornhinweg made throughout the week leading up to his first career start.

His approach was good. He took all the reps, so every day he knew he was trying to build off of that. I think he started to get a feel because he started asking, ‘Coach, what else do I need to look at? What else do I need to look at?’ So, we kind of designed what he should be studying on film.”

Pease said the gameplan last week revolved around not letting Jadeveon Clowney be a difference maker. That led to the run-heavy offense and the coaching staff will put more on Mornhinweg this week and they expect him to be able to handle that.

Tyler Murphy’s Status

Pease said Tyler Murphy has not been ruled out for the game this Saturday.

Murphy was out at practice yesterday, he didn’t throw but he went through reps with the offense.

He was out there, you know, just absorbing the game plan, jogging around, which we don’t really do much throwing anyway, so he was in there, just taking normal reps.”

Kelvin Taylor’s Maturation

Kelvin Taylor was thrust into a bigger role in the offense when Matt Jones went down with a season ending injury. He has handled the added workload well.

He’s getting indoctrinated as a freshman and that’s hard. But he’s a kid that’s willing to do it, and he I think he’s done a good job with it. And he’ll get better and better. I want to see him in his third or fourth year, he’s going to probably be outstanding.”

The strides that Kelvin has made would have given the coaching staff a difficult decision to make if Jones were still healthy as to who would start but Pease didn’t think that it would be a bad situation to have both Taylor and Jones.

I mean he [Taylor] is starting. He’s starting because he’s the best guy on our team right now. I don’t know if Matt was here, if Kelvin was continuing to improve he gives you a good complement. When you run downhill and you’re in a physical run-game, you need more than one guy.”

Mack Brown was surpassed on the depth chart by Taylor but that hasn’t changed how Brown approaches practice.

How has Mack dealt? You go compete hard. He’s come out to work every day. If you don’t like the situation, help change your role.”

Game plan against South Carolina

Pease added the wrinkle of having the quarterback motion out wide and having Taylor take direct snaps, which gives a different look than the Trey Burton wildcat. It’s a look that the team had practiced before but something that the staff wanted to make sure Kelvin was comfortable with before deploying it in a game scenario.

It was a little uncertain because none of the backs had really been in that situation, so it took some work during the week. And once they felt comfortable — I think at first they were a little cautious — but once they felt comfortable with the timing of it all and just understanding; it’s a little different because you’ve got to catch the ball and see your blocking schemes in front of you at that time. [Through] repetitions, they got comfortable with it.”

Pease knows that there are limitations in the scheme, especially after putting it on film.

The thing you gotta manage is, how much can those guys provide in what kind of run schemes you have and ability to maybe throw the ball. Because eventually, they are going to figure it out and have like nine or 10 guys down there in the box and then you can’t block them all. It’s something to expand on and work with.”

Pease said Florida went in with the game plan that they were going to have two guys on Clowney at all times.

Florida watched film of what other offense were able to successfully run against South Carolina and they were able to use some of that to help the offense last Saturday.

A South Florida native, Nick developed a passion for all things sports at a very young age. His love for baseball was solidified when he saw Al Leiter’s no-hitter for the Marlins live in May of 1996. He was able to play baseball in college but quickly realized there isn’t much of a market for short, slow outfielders that hit around the Mendoza line. Wanting to continue with sports in some capacity he studied journalism at the University of Central Florida. Nick got his first start in the business as an intern for a website covering all things related to the NFL draft before spending two seasons covering the Florida football team at Bleacher Report. That job led him to GatorCountry. When he isn’t covering Gator sports, Nick enjoys hitting way too many shots on the golf course, attempting to keep up with his favorite t.v. shows and watching the Heat, Dolphins and Marlins. Follow him on twitter @NickdelatorreGC

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